I’ve submitted a proposal to talk at Ignite London. It was entitled  ’Slogan T shirts. What they say, and what they say about us’

The brief description that accompanied the submission went along the lines of “Why do we walk around with writing on our clothes? Why do we seem to be wearing more and more provocative slogans? Why do some of us buy our children t shirts which say ‘If you think I’m a bitch you should meet my mother’ ? We can all read what these garments say - but what do they say about us?  I’m going to speak to t shirt manufacturers, t shirt wearing teenagers and twentysomethings, parents and children, psychiatrists and psychologists. All to try and find out more about the compulsion that makes people pull on an item of clothing that says ‘I’m with stupid’

I’d love some help with this. I’d love to know what is the weirdest, rudest, most inappropriate t shirt slogan you’ve ever seen. If you can think of one - mail me at info@thefreethinker.co.uk or tweet one to me at @freethinkeruk Find out more about why I want to do this talk….

Well, long ago when the world was young, The Badger and I used to delight in trying to find the worst ‘US Marine Corps Disco Style Fun’* slogans on the backpacks, t shirts and stonewash denim jackets of (mostly) Japanese tourists in London. We did this for the most part on Piccadilly which was around the corner from the advertising agency where we worked. We were young. We were culturally insensitive. So sneering at foreigners came easily. The phrases we sought after the most were the sort of bad translations which the people at Engrish have taken full circle; from orginal, misconceived and mistranslated sloganeering on garments to a humorous website and then back into merchandising of their own. Respect. Here’s the kind of thing I mean:

Mash up of hymns and quasi military coat of arms anyone?

I hadn’t been doing too much slogan spotting for a few years, until I started to notice that the ’statement’ t shirt industry was growing out of the local screen printing shop. Bigger brands were clearly employing copywriters, or angry disaffected individuals (obvious gag - these are often the same people) to devise angry, disaffected slogans to go on their quality heavyweight cottons. People could now buy t shirts which reflected their every mood, or indeed lifestage. For example students could buy ‘I’m out of bed and dressed, what more do you want?’, though I never found the companion ‘Resident’ shirt which replied ‘I want you to stop having parties, leave the traffic cones where you found them, and most of all, fuck off out of my town’.

But for every appropriate slogan - such as the student one above - I began to notice more and more ones which were either wildly inappropriate to the wearer, or made up of just the same sort of gibberish that the tourists used to wear during their visit to London. I saw a woman staggering out of A&E with a large bandage over one eye and an arm in plaster. ‘Angel’ it said on her t shirt. Hmmm, it didn’t look like she was.

Reload Clothing. Reload? Reload what? Your UZI?

I went to a party where the overweight host lumbered about in an overly tight, sequinned t shirt which brought sparkle to an already glittering evening by proclaiming ‘Smokin’ Beavers’. I have searched online using the words smokin’ beavers, and you get some very odd results. Some of which I have had to erase from my web browser history. What was clear from these searches was that this was an example of a very interesting sub-genre in the world of slogan t shirts - the invented US college / sports team. Does everyone in the world now own one of these? Who is to blame? Ralph Lauren? Tommy Hilfiger? Abercrombie or Fitch? Also, when did sequins and glitter become acceptable for Men? This surely is a  question which demands to be answered, even if it does lead us away from offensive sloganeering. So back to the matter in hand.

This is not as bad as the one I saw in fleshy reality

All of this t shirt spotting I found mildly amusing and diverting on family shopping trips. However, it wasn’t until I saw the aforementioned “if you think I’m a bitch you should meet my mother’ being worn by a young girl that I thought -  I have to find out more about this desire, this compulsion to be rude and confrontational to people through our clothes. Why wait to open your mouth? Offend whoever you meet via the medium of cotton garments.

http://www.zazzle.co.uk/if_you_think_im_a_bitch_you_should_meet_my_tshirt-235152005969498922

So I’m going to find out. Whether Ignite London accept the talk or not. Then I’ll post about it here. I’ll have some t shirts made - with the answer. If there is one. Or maybe I’ll just work with my friends, family, and hopefully the audience at Ignite to come up with absolutely the best t-shirt slogan we can. I will send to The Badger. He’ll like that.

*genuine jacket worn by an Italian boy. #true fact!

The evening was great success (despite my involvement) with some inspiring and engaging talks by a wide range of speakers. The films, done by the lovely Beeston Media and Oli Kendall are going up on Youtube. Here are two of the first

Kaz Pasiecznik - Cryptic Secrets - Unlocking the Crossword

Martin Poulter - What is Bayesianism and why should you care?

Martin - the Infobomb - is as impressive as ever. He and I are meeting soon to talk bias, belief, and marketing and advertising. Sparks will fly. As I sharpen my dull intellect on his spinning cranial wheel of information.

The man on the right thinks Michael Jackson is alive

Is Michael Jackson really dead? I share an office with an art director called Damian who harbours a deep suspicion that he is in actual fact sitting on a beach somewhere. Sharing a coconut cocktail with Bubbles the chimpanzee. Finally happy in calm anonymity, and laughing at us between slurps of sugary sweet revenge through his swirly straw. He also doesn’t believe that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on the 11th September 2001. That’s my friend Damian. Not Michael Jackson. I don’t know what ‘Wacko Jacko’s’ view on 911 were. But given that well known nickname of his, I would guess that MJ might agree with Damian when he tells me that the hole (in the Pentagon) wasn’t big enough for a plane to have caused it.

Damian has seen Loose Change. His online hit one of 125 million on Google, plus 30 million views on Youtube. That’s a lot of views. Of one view. That view being a radical, alternative perspective on a momentous event in history. In an eloquent letter posted online to their supporters, the makers of ‘Loose Change’, Dylan Avery and Korey Rowe assert that “We are not dealing with conspiracy theories. We are dealing with facts. We are asking for the Truth and our requests will not cease until they are legitimately met.”

Regrettably for them - I do not believe that Avery and Rowe will ever discover the ‘Truth’. Nor do I believe that the US Government will ever publish a definitive account of the events of that day that are accepted as being the ‘Truth’. The truth has become relative. Subjective. Personal. I can’t convince Damian that he’s wrong about the Pentagon and Flight 77. More importantly I don’t want to. I could thrust a copy of David Aaronovitch’s excellent ‘Voodoo Histories’ into his hand and demand he read it -  but as we work together, he as art director, me as copywriter, it might strain relations slightly. In all probability he wouldn’t believe its conclusions anyway. After all -  it conflicts with what he believes to be true. So does it matter to us as creative marketing professionals? That ‘truth’ has become a fluid concept? Does it make creating campaigns that sell easier?

I find the fact that truth is not absolute profoundly depressing, but to paraphrase Mr Aaronovitch; in our post modernist / post structuralist society where we distrust the normative notions of truth all accounts of events are essentially stories and no single account ought be privileged above another. So the “truth or otherwise of conspiracy theories is less important than their existence, because they are, properly analysed, an expression of an underlying reality, representing a not entirely unfounded suspicion that the normal order of things itself amounts to a conspiracy”. Or to put it more simply -  everything is valid even if you might believe it to be false. So the box on the creative brief which says ‘Why should the consumer believe this?’ doesn’t have to have facts in it anymore. There’s no more need for ‘the science bit’ in commercials. All we need is the ‘truth’ behind our product story. Which leads to Seth Godin and his book ‘All Marketers are Liars’. At about the same time as Avery and Rowe of ‘Loose Change’ were publishing their dedication to seek out the Truth, Godin was writing on his blog about why he’d renamed his book:

“This book is about worldviews—the biases and expectations and shortcuts we use to get through the world. Here’s a punchline: when you try to change someone’s worldview forcibly, they get a headache. People become defensive in the face of a frontal assault on their worldview. Cunning is far more effective. And of course, I ignored my own advice by challenging the worldview of my reader right there in the title.”

Again - to put it more simply - people didn’t like being called liars. Godin is an engaging and superficially persuasive writer - so here’s his marketing perspective on truth:

“You believe things that aren’t true. Let me say that a different way: many things that are true are true because you believe them.”

“We believe what we want to believe, and once we believe something, it becomes a self-fulfilling truth.”

Godin uses an excellent example of this in the first chapter of his book, where he shows that while the wine glass manufacturer Riedel assert that “the delivery of a wine’s ‘message’, it’s bouquet and taste, depends on the form of the glass” the scientific reality says different. ‘When the proper tests that eliminate any chance that the subject would know the shape of the glass - there is absolutely zero detectible difference between glasses. A $1 glass and a $20 glass deliver precisely the same impact on the wine: none.”

Riedel glasses are rather wonderful to look at and hold, and as Godin goes on to point out, people believe that wine tastes better out of their glasses because “people believe it should”. Riedel have also been successful for a long period of time, all over the world, which demonstrates that there are a lot of people out there who don’t care about scientific, objective evidence. These are consumers who have moved into a state of mind which Kevin Roberts refers to in his book ‘Lovemarks’ as ‘loyalty beyond reason’. Which is of course the mindset of true believers of all major conspiracy theories. Never mind the evidence, the reason - a true believer will be loyal to their particular brand of conspiracy, be that JFK & Dallas, the Diana crash, 9/11 Pentagon. For to reiterate; truth is relative, not absolute. So whether it’s to do with wine glasses or the war on terror - on subjects about which we care deeply, there seems to have been a consumer shift ‘beyond reason’.

http://www.damianthompson.net/

In his excellent book and website Counter Knowledge, Damian Thompson seeks to halt this flight from reason, worrying that “people who share a muddled, careless or deceitful attitude towards gathering evidence often find themselves drawn to each others fantasies. If you believe one wrong or strange thing you are more likely to believe another”

Hmm, so these people are muddled? Careless? Drawn to fantasies? From a marketing perspective these people sound perfect to sell things to! Unleash the crayons - lets create! Hold on a moment says Godin:

“When you are busy telling stories to people who want to hear them, you’ll be tempted to tell stories that just don’t hold up. Lies. Deceptions.”

“The thing is, lying doesn’t pay off any more. That’s because when you fabricate a story that just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, you get caught. Fast.

So, it’s tempting to put up a demagogue for Vice President, but it doesn’t take long for the reality to catch up with the story.”

Fair enough you might think. Lying isn’t very nice, and it’s particularly awful to be caught in a lie. But wait a moment. Who’s to say what a lie is these days? When truth has become so personal and subjective? A quick analysis of Godin’s other political references leads to the strong suspicion that the ‘demagogue’ in question must be Sarah Palin.

http://thewhitebull.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/sarah_palin_bikini.jpg

One half of a Republican party Presidential ‘ticket’ that secured 59,934,814 votes in the 2008 US election. So nearly sixty million people didn’t think McCain/Palin was a fabrication, or that ‘reality’ caught up with their story. OK, they didn’t win, but do they deserve to be called liars? Or that their supporters were taken in by a lie? Godin’s point is valid - that you ought not to lie to consumers. The example he uses to make this point is an execrable one based on his own biases and beliefs. It also undermines his own thesis. If all marketers are storytellers, and we live in a world where truth is relative, then every story is valid, even if you disagree with it. Godin is seeking to make absolute judgements against people, brands or organisations that he does not believe in, while at the same time championing the ‘creation’ of stories, the crafting of ‘authenticity’.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2009/02/17/aneurin_bevan_2.jpg

The twentieth century Labour politician Aneurin Bevan was famous for calling the Tories ‘vermin’, so it’s clear he held his political opponents in low regard. At the same time, he is also famous for the quote ‘This is my truth. Tell me yours” which demonstrates an awareness that those same opponents were entitled to hold a different, potentially opposite view on what the ‘truth’ around an issue might be. So, you might tell me your ‘truth’ -  be that about the advantages of Apple Macintosh computers or that Lord Lucan is still alive. I may disagree, but I cannot call you a liar or a deceiver. Not if you believe what you tell me to be true.

Godin goes on to conclude his new foreward to the book:

“That’s why I think this book is one of the most important I’ve ever written. It talks about two sides of a universal truth, one that has built every successful brand, organization and candidate, and one that we rarely have the words to describe.

Here are the questions I hope you’ll ask (your boss, your colleagues, your clients) after you’ve read this book:

“What’s your story?”
“Will the people who need to hear this story believe it?”
“Is it true?”

If what you’re doing matters, really matters, then I hope you’ll take the time to tell a story. A story that resonates and a story that can become true.

So, go tell a story. If it doesn’t resonate, tell a different one. When you find a story that works, live that story, make it true, authentic and subject to scrutiny. All marketers are storytellers, only the losers are liars.”

It all sounds messianic and empowering, this talk of ‘universal truth’, but what we’re really talking about here is relative, subjective, personal truth. Create a story, about a brand, a candidate, an organisation, or a major historical event, and ‘resonate’ your way to a place of great intellectual and/or fiscal strength - the island of loyalty beyond reason. Successful brands are founded on the authenticity, the truth of their story - whether it’s objectively and universally true or not. Wine tastes better from a Riedel glass not because it is scientifically proven to do so -  but because emotionally it feels like it ought to. Using that Riedel glass over and over again is reassuring. It is an affirmation of your personal taste and intelligence. So is believing in UFO’s, that Sarah Palin is a dangerous demogogue, or that Flight 77 never crashed into the Pentagon. You may hold these views and beliefs precious -  but they remain just that; a point of view, a belief. Not a truth. Which means that someone who disagrees with you holds an opposing view. Not that they are a liar or a loser. Again, conspiracy theories are a neat reference point. Can you remember the last time you debated with someone who held what to you was a preposterous point of view? How about that for many people in the UK it is easier to believe that their own government and royal family murdered a Princess for fear that she might marry a Muslim, rather than that Diana was the victim of a random, violent accident. A conspiracy theory involving the Duke of Edinburgh and Mi5 provides a welcome explanation for some -  for it shows that human agencies are powerful and that there is order rather than chaos in the universe. So Diana conspiracy works for these people. They live it. Give it authenticity. The fact that I might think it is fantastical nonsense which abandons all grasp of reason is to miss the point. As a marketer I have to be aware of what they believe and why. To not care about truth or lies. To accept that if reason sleeps - what monsters does it produce? That if Sarah Palin is just such a dangerous monster - why did nearly 60 million people vote for her? Not dismiss her as a liar and a loser due to my own bias and prejudice. This is cake and eat it territory. You can’t say ‘all marketers are storytellers’ and then denounce a story because you don’t like the way it starts, middles, or ends.

We live in an age of abundance and over supply of ideas, products and media. An age where the reason for choosing a brand is no longer based on reason. Where the choice of political belief or theory is no longer based on reason. In both cases personal choice springs from the same emotional well. One that forms a deep attachment to a crafted story of authenticity and truth which is subjective, personal and unassailable to objective reason. Like believing that Michael Jackson and Bubbles are frolicking on the sand somewhere hot. I mean, that’s just nonsense isn’t it? Or is it?

The hotel room in which I am lying on the bed is large and by any standards, luxurious. I have put the television on and noted with pleasure, the presence of Sky Sports. I am hopeful that the laundry service will be similarly impressive - this is important as I have brought a bin liner full of dirty clothes which I intend to get washed, dried and pressed on the agency bill. The mini bar is not locked – the hotel have mistaken me for a responsible professional again – and I am on my second gin and tonic. All of these things make my happy, yet I remain pinned to the bed by an overwhelming weariness, for I am not here by choice. I am here for a corporate awayday.

It is more than simply a day. It is two days, and two nights. It is an away weekend. In this yawning chasm of time, which should be our own, we will be exploring the brand strategy of a major automotive client of the advertising agency where I work. More than thirty ‘key stakeholders’ are now arriving from around the country. The quiet of the hotels riverside setting is routinely interrupted by a crunch from the gravel drive. Though the size and shape of each car may be different, they all bear the badge of the company which the drivers work for. The car park looks like a mechanical family reunion, where everyone is different, yet related.

We are gathered for pre dinner drinks. It is a hot summers night, and we are on the terrace overlooking the Thames. Temporary grandstands are still in place by the river, waiting to be removed now that the annual rowing regatta has finished for another year. The tiers of empty seats are a reminder of the crowds who would have been cheering on the public school eights only a few days before. The imagined memory of their carefree exuberance and confidence feels very different to our anxious corporate conversation. I accept the offer of a drink from Graham, a senior customer relationship manager. Nodding greetings to others as we go, Graham and I find a quiet table on the edge of the group. Graham appears pensive and nervous. His thick dark hair has furrowed nervously downward on his forehead. His eyes furtively glance from me to his work colleagues.

“Looking forward to the weekend?” I attempt a delicate balance in my tone. I am going for positive with a hint of knowing subversion.

“No.” replies Graham, before taking another long drink from his pint of strong lager. There is a pause, as I wonder if I can ask why, and Graham decides whether or not to share the reasons for an attitude which in the corporate world, would at the very least be described as ‘unhelpful’. Graham sighs and sits back.

“You know that this weekend is all about discovering more about our brand? About uncovering and unlocking potentially hidden truths about it?”

“Yes” I am aware that Graham is reciting, word for word, the introduction in the briefing notes we were all sent two weeks before. He has it commited to memory. I think that this cannot be a good thing.

“and that it says that through a programme of creative and intellectual exercises, we will learn more about our brand, our business, and ourselves?”

“Yes”

“that we will get to know it, our business, better. And that along the way we will get to know ourselves better as well?”

“It’s an ambitious claim I grant you.” I have now cast aside any pretence of positivity. Graham is moving toward a cynical denunciation of modern business practise. Or so I think.

“It’s bollocks - that’s what it is. I mean, everyone knows what we do. We sell cars. Then we sell leather. Air conditioning. Sports exhausts. Servicing. What is there to uncover? Will we learn that they can fly? Go underwater? Make the tea? No. Fucking bollocks.” Graham is angry. He finishes his pint. I lean forward to pick up the two glasses on the table between us, and am about to offer him another, when he too leans forward and suddenly grips my forearm. His fingers are long and powerful. I notice for the first time that he has large hands. dockers hands I think, though I have no idea if he or any of this family have worked in a shipyard. I can see the bones move within his arm, muscles tanned from long journeys draped out of a car window, exposed to the sun by the short sleeved, logo embroidered shirt he is compelled to wear.

“The truth is Pete – I don’t want to know anymore about me. I don’t want to know myself better. I don’t like myself much.”

I do not know what to say. I am employed, in the main, for a capacity to be quick witted and to always have something to say. Now I do not. I was expecting professional cynicism and instead I got sudden psychological insight. Graham has not relaxed his grip. He is awaiting a response. His dark, thick eyebrows are heavy over his brown eyes. His hair, slick with gel, is glistening in the evening sun.

“Why ever not mate?” the mate is my attempt to escape. It says cheer up, snap out of it, lets paddle back to the shallows. Talk about football, or cars, or sex we haven’t had. I have to ask the why, but I can add in the mate to show how much I didn’t want to.

“I’ve come a long way. Glasgow. From the bottom, and now I’m near the top. It’s taken twenty years. A lot of hard work. I’ve made some friends but also, well. Some of the things I’ve done. I don’t know. I just don’t want to have to look back there. Not interested.” Graham lets go of my arm. I am pleased at his inability to talk about what he might have done. Who he might have hurt. I am not really interested in where he has come from, unless it is in the banal context of satellite navigation.

“Another?” I stand up with an empty glass in both hands.

“Yes. Why not?” replies Graham. All sorts of reasons I think to myself before heading back to the bar.

Andy, the agency strategy director walks into the bar as I am buying the drinks. I buy him one as well. He is short and crumpled in linen shirt and shorts, his greying shoulder length hair kept out of his eyes by a pair of large sunglasses pushed up onto his head. It is a male Alice band. An Andy band I think, but again, as on the terrace with Graham, I do not say. This is another aspect of my job - never saying what you are thinking. I tell Andy about my exchange with Graham. As agency colleagues we will take any opportunity to denigrate and moan about anyone from the client team, even if they have, like Graham, shared a personal confidence. Andy takes a sip from his drink, his long finger nails, fashioned to help him play his collection of guitars, tapping against the side of the cold glass.

“He doesn’t like himself because he’s fucking Natasha.” Andy’s rich Liverpudlian accent is for once flat and matter of fact.

“Who?”

“The PR girl. Over there – with Ben and Larry. Ben told me when we went out in Soho. Graham’s got a wife and kids and he’s knobbing Natasha. So don’t give me any crap about tough upbringings. He’s just terrified that it will come out. Everyone knows of course. But he doesn’t know that. Thanks for the drink. This is going to be shit isn’t it? A whole fucking weekend. Jesus.” Andy wanders away, and I follow him out through the doors to the terrace. A large motorboat chugs past. When I bring the drinks back to Graham he is able to tell me what make and model it is, and something else about the engine size which I forget even as he says it. We are called into dinner.

So I am not surprised or outraged that shopping centres, factory outlets, retail parks and whoever else from across the whole of the South West and Wales are at present seeking to entice me to enjoy their own particular retail experience. Posters and bus advertising tells me that ‘fashion has a new capital’. Which is Cardiff. Having been out in Cardiff recently, I do not believe this claim, but the pictures look nice. The Mall on the outskirts of Bristol promises me that ’shopping is a joy’. I’ve been to this Mall many times -  the last being a visit to buy my daughters sensibly priced sun hats and other various essentials for the summer. It is clean. It is brightly lit. But the only part of the experience that is joyful and triumphant is the drive away, mission accomplished, without recourse to family counselling.

However there is one particular advertising campaign exhorting me to shop and spend that does surprise and outrage me. It’s this one -  and it’s not for a particular shop or retail centre. It’s for a city - the city of Bath. Which according to the copy is ‘A golden city paved with shops’

Am I outraged because the Dick Whittington imagery and headline has no relation to Bath -  being a legend based firmly in London?

No. It’s because this comes from Visitbath.co.uk who describe their city as being “nourished by natural hot springs, Bath offers a unique experience with stunning architecture, great shopping and iconic attractions.” There is it again - shopping. Sorry I’ve got to break off for a second to utter a primal scream across the office. There. Better now. Let’s take this slowly. Bath does indeed have stunning architecture. Likewise iconic attractions. I’m with visitbath so far. But what’s more it is a WORLD HERITAGE SITE. Let’s now look at the criteria a site has to fulfill to ascend to Unesco World Heritage Site status:

Selection criteria:

1. to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius;
2. to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design;
3. to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared;
4. to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history;

Remember that these are just the first four -  and Bath fulfills them all. Is it not extraordinary therefore, that this unique, amazing city is being sold to visitors not on anything which has helped it achieve this exalted global status, but rather on the fact that it has shops. Why? When EVERYWHERE has shops. Lots of them. I know -  they’re all bombarding me with their advertising messages all day and everyday. When I go to places there are shops. Moreoften than not, branches of the same shops that I have left back in my home town.

Bath has something different. Genuinely, uniquely different. So in my view this campaign is a sorry failure of imagination and belief. It’s a client and an agency agreeing ‘yes we do have something unique, but we don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just do what everyone else is doing. People like shopping. Let’s talk about shopping’

It’s a massive marketing #fail in my opinion.

Running may well be easy. Spelling and grammar are clearly a little bit harder.

Here is the cup he drank deeply from everyday. Too much time on his hands? Maybe. Farewell Mr Foster. Hope to work with you again soon.

No - we were on a photographic shoot and had to book a hotel at late notice in Gateshead. The local Travel Lodge was the most convenient for the next day.

How bad could it be?

Bad. So Gavin (the photographer) and I spent the evening boring our friends and family with our constant whines and whinges. The result was this photomontage, put together by the office and mailed around everyone we had kept awake with our moaning.

Three things to note:

1. The rooms don’t look like that.

2. I don’t wear a shirt in bed.

3. Gavin had a (terrible) room all of his own and didn’t, as far as I know, take any pictures of me in bed.

That is all.

Travel Lodge. When in doubt. Don’t.

Here is Giles. Holding forth as compere at Ignite Bristol #1

So the discussion kicked off with:

“Help! I’m facing a tiresome situation where a client is illogically dissecting potential brand names we have given them. An example would be:

Me: I recommend calling your supermarket Waitrose.

Them: WHAT! No one wants to Wait in a supermarket, you can’t call it Waitrose. What if an old lady called Rose comes in…

The quiz is to think of any other brand names that you could do this to, to point out that it is a bit silly to be literal.”

I replied with:

TK Maxx - ”we can’t call it that, Maxx is all about maximum, and we’re about minimal prices”

Then Andy Edwards of 180 Amsterdam piled in with

“KY Jelly – but people might put custard on it…oh they already do

Seat – it’s not a fucking wheelchair, it’s a car

Pret a manger – but people hate the those cheese eating surrender monkeys

Clowns Pocket – why would a clone need a…oh”

Then Dan Izbicki won the contest with the following: